Provenance: Maria Elisabeth Augusta von Sulzbach (1721-1794, wife of Carl Theodore, Electoral Prince of the Palatinate, subsequently Electoral Prince of Bavaria) -- Mannheim, Hofbibliothek -- Munich, Royal Library (their duplicate sale, 1832, sold for 350 guilders) -- Robert Curzon, Baron Zouche (1810-1873, and by descent until sold) -- Sotheby's 9 November 1920, lot 70, to Joseph Sabin; sold by him to -- Gabriel Wells, who broke up the copy, dispersing it in single leaves, many of them accompanied by A. Edward Newton's essay, as here, and in larger fragments.

Eyebrow hair, 12 mm, COMPLETE with bulb at one end and natural taper at the other, blond or white, [middle of the 15th century]. Soiled with printer's ink over a segment approximately 2 mm in length.

Provenance: The present hair was formerly adhered to the surface of this leaf of the Gutenberg Bible, where it was held to the paper by the printing ink. It lay under the ink when the leaf was received by Christie's and was inadvertently dislodged in the course of cataloguing for this sale. The impression left by the hair in the surface of the paper is clearly visible at II Cor. 7:10, as is the furrow of white across the first letter "t" of the word tristitia, where the ink which lay over the hair came off with it.

The hair must have dropped onto the forme after it was inked and before the page was printed. It is therefore presumably a body hair, probably an eybrow hair, from one of the pressmen in Gutenberg's shop -- conceivably from the master himself. (2)